Though his name is Biju Sopanam, he is familiar to Malayalees as Thampy alias Balu from the sitcom Uppum Mulakum. Now this theatre artiste-turned-television star has forayed into Malayalam film industry with a prominent role in Manju Warrier-Amala Akkineni-starrer C/O Saira Banu. In the film, he acts as Advocate Subbu. “This film’s director Antony Sony used to follow our programme and he liked the way I portrayed my character. To be frank, it was just because of Uppum Mulakum that I got a call to this film.
The director was planning to cast a comedy actor in the role and it was later he zeroed in on me. Yet another happy thing is that he scheduled my shoot dates according to my availability as I had to allot 24 days every month for Uppum Mulakum,” says Biju, a product of Kavalam Narayanapanicker’s Sopanam Theatre Group.
Quizzed about his arrival to filmdom, he says, “In fact this is not my debut film. I had acted in few films before in unimportant roles. My first film was Anwar Rasheed’s Rajamanikyam in which I have acted as a person who kills the minister amid a procession. Later, I acted in Mammoookka’s Bhargava Charitham Moonam Khandam and many more films. All these films happened due to my friendship with the crew members, but those were not prominent roles. None other than me noticed my presence in those scenes.”
“One day, during the shoot of Uppum Mulakum in Kochi, Georgettan, Mammookka’s manager, came to the sets. He said Mammookka is there in the adjacent house for a shoot and he wanted to meet me. When I went there, the first thing that he asked was that ‘You had acted with me in films, right?’ Later we talked a lot and he said that we would do a film together soon,” says the actor, during a train journey to Kochi, to join the shoot of Uppum Mulakum. “It is this programme that changed my life. I feel it is just because of the power of media that I got this fame in such a small period. I am getting a lot of offers from films, but all are in discussion phase,” he sums up.
